Your Words, My Constellation
by snowflake912
Summary: "You always like starting with the sad stories," she says it like an accusation. - A post-Watershed AU that experiments in telling Rick and Kate's story at two very different points in time and then ties everything together like a patchy, woven quilt (warm but a little eccentric like something your grandma gave you except sexier).


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing besides my words – and my laptop.

**Author's Note:** This has been sitting on my hard drive for months – since Watershed, and that terrible proposal. All is well that ends well, but I wanted _more_ for them. I'm silly that way. Anyway, this picks up from Watershed and spins into its own universe. It's an experiment of sorts for me. The first part of every chapter is the main arch of the story's plot. The second part is set during a different point in time, a stark contrast to the main plot line, and the context of it will slowly get revealed as the story evolves. I hope it's not too confusing. It's going to be a multi-chapter. Five maybe? I hope you enjoy reading it.

_1. The Great Rift_

_I gave you sorrow to hang on your wall_  
_Like a calendar in one color._  
_I wear a torn place on my sleeve;_  
_It isn't as simple as that._  
– The Nails by W.S. Merwin

The sun shines bright and brilliant in the afternoon sky, burning red and hot at the edges of her vision like the glint off a hundred sniper rifles.

She's not about to have a panic attack. Her breathing holds even as her heart stumbles, stills, skips two or three life-sustaining pumps, and then she's back in her frozen body, suspended in this half-reality. As hard as she blinks, the image of him is crisp and unchanged: kneeling in the grass, his swing still stuttering to a hesitant stop like it _knows_ that things will never be the same again, the dazzling diamond sparkling and dwarfed between his thumb and forefinger. The chain of her own swing bites into her palm. Funny how even their swings are possessions: his and hers. She can't seem to shake the pronouns, turn _mine _into _ours_. They have no letters in common anyway, and she's always operated on reason and patterns.

_Will you marry me?_

In that split second, she realizes that she doesn't even know _what _that means. Maybe it means _always_,but hasn't he already promised her that? She thinks his _forevers_ are fleeting whims that have left him with two divorces and a motherless child. She flits through unkind thoughts, her vicious streak growing like a dark energy in her chest. A minute ago, she was ready to walk away, pride intact, heart in pieces. She was mentally drawing out her recovery, finding herself burrowed in the corner of her couch in a strange city with Jack Daniel's and the quiet lull of midnight. And everything – _everything _– just feels incredibly wrong. Her heart is still lodged in the pit of her stomach, sick with that thought, how she doesn't even remember life before him, how she's come to _need_ him. More than she'd meant to. More than she should have let herself.

The silence takes none of the fierceness out of his electric blue eyes. He's _waiting _on her, she realizes, because it's what he does. It's what she's taught him to do best. He's learned that time weakens her resolve and draws out her needs until she breaks under their weight. And _God, Castle_, why does he have to keep pushing? When she closes her fist around his hand, careful not to touch the platinum band, his handsome face crumbles into a frown, a flash of confusion and then stark pained realization. He reads her much too quickly but lets her pull him to his feet.

"Castle –" she starts and falters. Her voice surprises her: choked, small and wounded. It physically hurts to speak when he's staring down at her with everything on the line and his bruised heart peering at her from the cobalt in his eyes. _God, Castle._ "I-I can't," she says quietly, uses up most of her resolve to not whisper the words brokenly. "Not now. Not like this."

"Kate, look at me." Somehow his hand has freed itself of hers and of the ring. It moves to her chin, long fingers spanning her jaw as he tilts her face and forces their gazes to clash. She knows hers to be dark and stormy, poised for a fight, but the softness of his gaze chips away at her. The adoration in his eyes overwhelms everything else. Sometimes she thinks she's in love with the way he's in love with her. "Kate," he says again, gently this time like he can hear the struggle inside her, like it doesn't matter that he's broken too.

"I accepted the job in DC," she says stonily.

"_Kate_," he sighs and furrows his brow in bewilderment, his hand still stroking warmth into her cheek. "I'm not proposing to you to keep you here or because I'm afraid I'm going to lose you. I'm proposing because I can't imagine my life without you," he says, and there's such earnest feeling in those blue eyes, so much love, she can hardly breathe. "If that means when things get difficult, we have to figure them out, then I'm willing to figure them out, assuming you're willing to figure them out with me," he adds gently, and it's the perfect thing to say. He's always been good with words. Ink runs in his veins, dark and beautiful. He uses it to craft his world into something magical, a place that includes her, and she's never been one for fantasy.

So when the world threatens to crumble around her like a sand castle, she fists her hands in the lapels of his jacket, knuckles biting hard into his chest, and she presses up on the toes of her boots. She stops before her lips touch his and whispers, "Not now, Castle." She kisses his frown away, buries her tongue in the soft, welcoming warmth of his mouth. The sun sits hot and alive on her cheeks, and he tastes like coffee, like love, like imminent loss and unbearable fear. She holds him tighter, her arms slipping around his chest, pulling him close, and she kisses him harder until the pressure of her lips against his turns bruising. He makes a keening noise in the back of his throat and slides his warm hands up to her shoulders. The press of his fingers through her leather jacket is light, but it's enough for him to set her away, breaking free of her frantic kiss.

He searches her wild gaze like the sole survivor of a shipwreck looking for a piece of lumber in the infinite ocean. "That's not a no," he whispers finally, full of hope and light. There's a chill in the breeze that blows through the thick tresses of his hair. She loves his hair. "To the proposal," he explains to her silence. "That's not a no."

"It's not a yes."

* * *

"The Milky Way?"

He grins, and it's all teeth and glee disappearing into the start-studded sky. "Yes, the ancient Romans believed the soft, misty glow was made of milk."

Soft laughter tumbles through the peaceful night. He feels the joy of it rumble in his chest where she's nestled against him, her hair spilling over his white shirt possessively, streaks of molten gold and sun-kissed chocolate, and everything smells like summer.

"Look closer. Look at how the Milky Way breaks in two right there," he says and reaches up with his forefinger to paint a trail of darkness through the constellations. The black river gushes down the center of the universe – unapologetic, mystical in its shrouded beauty.

"What is that? Who stole the stars in the middle?"

"The Great Rift," he answers. "Many legends have been told about the rift. Most famously the story of Phaethon, the young son of Helios, the Sun-god, and Klymene."

"Greek?"

"Yes, the ancient Greeks always _loved_ a good story."

She catches his hand on her tanned shoulder, traps it against her cheek as she curls her fingers to fill the spaces between his, and something catches in his throat at the whisper of her warm breath across his knuckles. Airy kisses like an afterthought or a distraction. "Castle?" she murmurs, her voice teasing, pressed into all the intimate parts of his being like she knows precisely all the ways she undoes him. He hums back a response, something unintelligible and distracted by her thoughtless kisses, and he strokes his thumb into her palm. "The story?"

He feeds into the quiet for a few seconds, rearranging his scattered thoughts, and he's egged on by the gentle nudge of an elbow against his hip. "Ah, yes, the story," he says and clears his throat. "Young Phaethon was an ambitious fellow. His dream was to drive the chariot of the sun, to control the strength of its immortal beasts. He begged his father, Helios, to let him drive the magnificent, golden carriage across the heavens. The god of the sun finally gave in and handed Phaethon the reigns…"

"Rookie mistake," she scoffs, pursing her lips to press a delicate kiss to his fingertip, and he huffs out an indignant breath of laughter.

"Phaethon was too weak and inexperienced, so it wasn't long before he lost command of the immortal steeds. The sun-chariot swung out of control, setting the Earth below on fire, scorching the planes of Africa to desert. Zeus, the king of the gods and the god of the sky, was _appalled_ by the destruction and _furious_ at Helios. He struck Phaethon from the chariot with a thunderbolt, and both boy and chariot fell into the river Eridanus – lost to Helios and Klymene forever."

He feels the uneasy twitch of tense muscles against his side before a voice breaks the charged silence. "Wait, what about the Great Rift?"

"Legend has it Phaethon's reckless ride across the sky is marked by the darkness of the Great Rift."

"You always like starting with the sad stories," she says it like an accusation.

"I like my endings happy."

* * *

**A/N:** Reviews are love.


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